When did Xbox turn bad for you?

[Dodgykebaab]

I have a negative view of Xbox as a brand and eco system. But it wasn't always like this, I started off actually really liking Xbox but I clearly remember at what point I started to turn on the brand.

When Xbox first launched, I was all in on it. I enjoyed Project Gothem, Jet Set Radio Future, an even Steel Batalion with its giant controller!

I was a member of Xbox Live on day 1 and although played at lot of Halo 2 clan matches I actually had the mos fun trying for Burnout 2 online High scores in Crash mode.
I did have a PS2 & Game Cube (and Dreamcast but obviously no new games were coming to that!) but I played the Xbox far more than any of the other systems and it was even my DVD player because I bough the adaptor.

I got and really liked the Xbox 360 at launch and for that first year I was all in on that console. I got the plug and charge kits, the WiFi adaptor and the VGA lead. The first year or so the software was strong but I couldn't help but keep an eye on the upcoming PS3.

By the time March 2007 rolled around I decided the day before launch to buy a PS3; only because I wanted Virtua Fighter 5! But that was the start of looking at the Xbox in a different light.

The PS3 didn't need a plug and charge kit, or a WiFi apaptor, it had a bigger HDD, had HDMI, free Online and had a BluRay Drive. By the time you factored all that stuff in, it was far cheaper than the Xbox 360!

But the 360 was still good, the games were fun and I played Final Fantasy XI Online for hours upon hours on it. But my opinion of Xbox had dropped from overwhelmingly positive, to good.

Then less good new first party games were coming out, but the PS3 was getting loads.
Then the 360 started showing adverts in the dashboard even though you had to pay for a subscription to play online. The PS3 just kept getting new features.

My opinion of Xbox had dropped a fair bit by this point, but the tipping point was the NXE update. The dashboard was now far, far worse and piled up with the other issues that had come along, my opinion of Xbox tipped from neutral to unfavourable.

In the years since, my opinion of Xbox has sank from unfavourable, to completely negative.

 

[moonbits]

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

I would say at the middle live-span of the Xbox 360 which was a small Bump because it still got great games but became really bad when the Xbone released.

That was almost a straight dive into misery . But the Xbox series X showed us , it can always be much worse .

 

[Goshikk]

When they went the SEGA way and replaced A and B & X and Y, ruining my every single quick time event

So day one

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

When they announced the Kinect and on that same E3 they showed more Kinect garbage then anything else. Only 3 games came out of Kinect that were good and its not even worth it for that.
The downfall of Xbox was at that moment and the peak of it was Don Mattrick's hand rubbing when they announced the Xbone.

 

[moonbits]

When they announced the Kinect and on that same E3 they showed more Kinect garbage then anything else. Only 3 games came out of Kinect that were good and its not even worth it for that.
The downfall of Xbox was at that moment and the peak of it was Don Mattrick's hand rubbing when they announced the Xbone.

 

[Neb Lleb]

Three words: Game Pass increase. Just like that, Microsoft's consoles wound up going on markdown at retailers and PlayStation claimed victory in the console wars.

 

[PhrawzT]

The Xbox One is what ruined Xbox for me. The original and 360 were great, but I felt like the name was dumb, and the games were uninspired and there was a lack of good exlusives.

 

[RustySK]

The last XBox I owned was a 360.

The thing broke on me twice and always sounded like it was either about to explode or plain fall apart whenever I used it. To this day I have never had any tech issues with any other console ever.
I generally got the impression that it was carelessly manufactured and so I never had a lot of respect for the thing as a product.
If they don't care about their own platform enough to manufacture it well, why should I?

I did love a good few games on that system though - Bayonetta, Halo 3, ODST and Reach come to mind - but the PS3 was just so much more quiet and so much better put together that I ultimately made the decision to go with a PS4 when the next generation came around.
Since Microsoft leaned harder and harder into their online infrastructure from that point onwards, I can't say I regretted that choice.

That said, at this point consoles in general have become entirely uninteresting to me, so I don't have a horse in that race either way anymore.

 

[Danieru-Emanyueru]

For me it was over when the 360 was over because everything that came after was just rubbish.

 

[JellyjamLu]

The E3 presentation of Xbox One, where they decided it was cool to make over 90% of that presentation to focus on movies, TV and sports.
Immediately after it ended i shifted my attention to jumping ship to PS4 instead. Xbox never recovered or recaptured the magic of the 360 days till this day imo.

 

[Sorion]

I still like xbox, I own an xbox one and all but I admit, they're in hot waters now, I think the first red flag for xbox was the late xbox 360 era when they tried to push the Kinect instead of developing more great AAA games like they did in the early 360 era, sony managed to improve the ps3 dramatically, they released cheaper and better versions of the ps3, more exclusive games, they even managed to outsell the 360 by the end of the generation.
To me, Microsoft always had the "grow and exploit" mentality with their userbase, and once the 360 grew to solid numbers they began to slowly shift from delivering quality to monetizing their userbase, that became clear when the xbox one was announced. But that infamous e3 2013 presentation was just the cherry on top of a much larger problem.

 

[redux007]

X-Box went down hill with the 360 adding a paywall for connecting to the Internet and a host of other incredibly scummy, hand rubbing activities. Such as DLC. Basically destroyed home console gaming as a previously "innocent" hobby up until that point.

 

[Dr.Kisaragi]

I was never fan of Xbox because my country is more of Nintendo and Sony (and Sega) so I rarely saw Xbox console

But I do like the controller though the 360 this one I using on computer.

 

[ThunderBoy]

Xbox One.

Stupid design
Stupid name
Stupid Kinect

 

[iamthemilkman]

While Don Mattrick's Xbox One reveal was a disaster with the all-digital nonsense and forcing Kinect 2.0, I think Phil Spencer's done more damage. At the end of the day, games matter. Xbox One launched with exclusives. Xbox One got exclusive games like Dead Rising 3, Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive, and some cool niche Japanese exclusives like Crimson Dragon from ex-Panzer Dragoon devs and D4 from Swery of Deadly Premonition fame. Granted, none of these were big sellers, however I enjoyed all of them. By comparison, the Xbox Series X didn't launch with a single exclusive. How do you launch a new console without an exclusive? That's insane to me.

 

[NoMention]

I think that all systems suffered the moment they tried to go 4K when the hardware was not ready for it and games don't really need it. My favorite was the Xbox360, then the original Xbox, and lastly into the XboxOne/Series era. I have the Xbox One, the Xbox One X, and the Xbox Series X and I think the Xbox One X was probably what the Xbox One should have started off as. It was a great 1080p console. I don't understand this need for 4K. If a game system could do reliable 1080p at 120fps, that would be sufficient (at least for me) for years to come. I don't need all the ray-tracing and other techno-crap to make the games look realistic when the gameplay or story of them are so poor. I also don't want to pay $100 a game just because it costs the development more because they are doing higher quality 4K renders.

The PS4 Pro is probably my favorite system, then the Xbox 360 and PS3 are close together. I don't have high expectations for the remaining life of the PS5/XBox Series era and find myself having little to no interest in "what comes next".

I do hope that XBox rediscovers its roots and goes back to what made the original XBox and the XBox 360 so good in terms of games. Even something as silly as Rockstar's Table Tennis game for the 360 is still surprisingly fun to play for a while, especially with friends in a group. I like how the PS4 is still being loosely supported and am curious that if the price and availability of RAM continues does this mean that existing systems will be supported longer due to economics? Is there really any NEED for a PS6 or XBox Series X 2? For me, that's a no...

 

[redux007]

Just want to put out there I have no brand loyalty, doh. Not to SNOY nor Nitendon't.